The Ghost In The Mirror
804 Words
Chapter 13: The Ghost in the Mirror***
Li Chen woke up warm.
That was wrong.
Black Lotus Palace was never warm. Not with the windows gone and snow on the floor. Not with Xie Wuchen’s qi bleeding frost into everything he touched.
But there was a chest against his back. A left arm locked around his waist. Breath on his neck, slow and even.
He didn’t move. If he moved, the lie would end.
“You’re awake,” Xie Wuchen said. Voice like gravel. “Your heartbeat changes when you lie.”
Li Chen opened his eyes. The ceiling was still cracked from Heaven’s Blade. The ninth pear blossom hung outside, white and defiant. The tenth bud had opened overnight. Small. Green. Real.
“Your hand,” Li Chen said.
“What about it.”
“It’s on me.”
“It’s the only one I have.” Flat. Factual. “I’m not wasting it.”
Li Chen turned. Xie Wuchen didn’t stop him. Didn’t help either.
Up close, last night was written all over him. Hair mussed, nine red threads still in. Dark shadows under his eyes. Right wrist ending in nothing. No bandage. No stump. Just skin, as if the hand had never existed.
“You should be dead,” Li Chen said again. He’d said it last night. He’d say it tomorrow.
“I’m not.”
“You blocked Heaven with your bare hand.”
“And I’d do it again.” No hesitation. “With my teeth if I had to.”
Li Chen sat up. The blanket pooled at his hips. His inner robe was torn at the throat. Xie Wuchen’s gaze flicked there, then away. Like looking burned.
“There’s a mirror,” Xie Wuchen said suddenly. “East wing. Third door. Don’t look in it.”
Li Chen blinked. “What.”
“Black silk over it. Warded. Don’t touch it. Don’t look.”
“Why do you keep a cursed mirror in your house?”
“It’s not cursed. It shows the truth. Not the one you want. The one that is.” Xie Wuchen sat up too. Movement stiff. “It’ll show you him.”
_Bai Ze._ The name neither of them said out loud.
Li Chen stood. His legs worked. Two meridians made him stronger. Or angrier. “I’m not him.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? You called me A-Ze last night.”
Xie Wuchen flinched. Full-body. “You are—”
“I’m Li Chen.” He walked to the window. Snow bit his bare feet. “I’m also him. Somehow. I feel it when the qi moves. But I’m not your ghost.”
“I never said—”
“You didn’t have to.” Li Chen turned. “You look at me like you’re waiting for me to vanish. Like last night was a mistake you’ll pay for.”
Xie Wuchen got off the bed. One hand on the post for balance. “If that mirror shows you him, and you decide you’re only him, you’ll do what he did.”
“Which was?”
“Die for me.” Xie Wuchen’s voice went flat. Dead. “He always chose the world over himself. Over me. He let Heaven take him because he thought it would save me. It didn’t.”
The room went colder.
Li Chen walked to him. Stopped a breath away. “I’m not leaving.”
“You say that now.”
“I said it last night. ‘You have me. Breathing. Here. Choosing.’” Li Chen grabbed his left wrist. Pressed it to his chest, over his heart. “Feel that? That’s not his. That’s mine. And it’s not going anywhere.”
Xie Wuchen closed his eyes. For a second, he leaned in. Then he pulled back.
“Third door,” he said. “East wing. The ward will burn you if you’re not sure.”
“Are you telling me not to go?”
“I’m telling you I can’t stop you.” Xie Wuchen looked at his missing hand. “I’m short one hand. And I used the other one last night to hold you. I don’t regret it. But I won’t cage you with it.”
Li Chen nodded. Once.
“Wait for me?” he asked.
Xie Wuchen looked at the tenth bud. Green, new, alive. Then at Li Chen.
“I waited three hundred years,” he said. “I can wait an hour.”
Li Chen left.
The corridor was black stone and old blood. The third door was lacquered shut, paper talismans plastered across it. _Seal. Bind. Forget._
Behind it, the mirror waited. Covered in black silk. Humming.
Li Chen put his hand on the wood. The talismans flared. Burned.
He pushed.
The door opened.
- Writer
